“There may be present at each session the writer in the Boston Courier, and a friend, and the four gentlemen composing the Committee of Investigation, Dr. Gardner, and any number of persons not exceeding six at any one time, at his option, such being selected and invited by Dr. Gardner.
“The writer in the Courier, and the gentlemen composing the Committee, agree that, while they are at liberty to exercise all the shrewdness and powers of observation which they are capable during the investigation, they will not exercise their will power to endeavor to prevent the manifestations, but allow them to be produced under the most favorable conditions which a thorough scientific investigation will permit.
“The words ‘to be provided by Dr. Gardner’ first being stricken out, and the words ‘and a friend’ inserted, it is further understood that the proceedings are not to be published until the investigations are closed.
“Boston Courier,
by George Lunt.
H. F. Gardner.”
We questioned, at that time, the propriety of leaving New York to attend to this request, as to do so would necessarily cause us to break our engagements at home. And, as to the contest between the professors of Harvard College and the Boston Spiritualists, mediums, etc., we cared very little at that time whether they (the professors) should pronounce for or against us, and for this reason: that it may be safely averred that while intelligent, scientific minds, honestly and studiously devoted to their legitimate labors and investigations, have been, and are, glorious pioneers in the advancement of human knowledge, there are subjects touching which scholastic eminence furnishes but a poor outfit for special and honest investigation. But we had met the equals of these Boston and Harvard professors long ere this; and here let me add we seldom received enlightenment through scientific opponents. Many successful experiments had been made by honest, intelligent, and educated investigators, which proved, beyond all cavil, what their science could not fathom—and did not wish to.
It will be remembered, I doubt not, that Professor Eustis, of the Scientific School, once caught the foot of a Divinity student out of its proper place under the table, and that the said professor cried “fraud,” and brought an accusation against the student before the governing faculty of the university, who, in their high wisdom, knowing not what they did, expelled the young man for the “heinous crime of owning an erratic foot.”
I am unable to state here at what time this occurrence took place, but the public press, at that time, very extensively condemned the action of the collegiate authorities in that case; and, in doing this, Spiritualism necessarily came more or less in for consideration. Great doubt was expressed, in the press editorials of the day, of the honesty of the professors in thus expelling the student without giving him an opportunity to prove his integrity. The expulsion of this young Divinity student was simply because he was a Spiritualist and a medium, and refused to abandon the sacred truth which he had learned and tested in his own person; and it was in the full spirit of the old New England persecutions for honest opinion obnoxious to dominant authority; which, fortunately, had no longer the power to hang or burn. But the world moves, after all, in spite of such persecutions, to which history soon does the justice it has rendered to Galileo; and the leading scientific journal of New England, published at Cambridge itself, an organ of the Scientific faculty of Harvard, has recently put itself in the line of modern progress in reference to this very subject of Spiritualism.
Fierce and rude attacks were made in the columns of The Boston Courier, by these professors, upon mediums, Spiritualists, and all who had any faith in the phenomena; insinuating at the time that, “If mediums believed in themselves, they would only be too eager to exhibit their powers before those who are most sceptical.”
In reply to these attacks Dr. Gardner made the following proposition, viz., That a committee of twelve disinterested men shall be selected by the principal editors of The Boston Journal, The Boston Courier, and The Daily Traveller, which committee shall arrange all the preliminaries of the discussion, and decide upon the strength of the arguments, adduced for and against the Spiritual origin of the various forms of manifestations of the present day, usually denominated Spiritual.
The challenge to a public discussion was declined, but in lieu of it the following statement appeared in The Courier, which was well understood to have proceeded from Professor Felton, of Harvard: